Summer Wind

"Summer Wind" is a 1965 song, with music by Henry Mayer and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. A cool, nostalgic tale of a fleeting romance, it is most known for a 1966 recording by Frank Sinatra that is informed by what NPR called "a majestic sadness." It is largely forgotten that singer Wayne Newton had the first national chart hit (1965). [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3929906] The Sinatra version hit number one on Billboard's Easy Listening survey.

By the 2000s, it was one of Sinatra's most-used recordings in various contexts, including a mid-2000s television ad campaign for Mastercard and Major League Baseball.

Also in the 2000s it became a hit for crooner Michael Bublé, recording an arrangement with long-time producer and collaborator David Foster, who heralds it as one of the all time greatest jazz standards ever written.

In 1974, author Johnny Mercer recorded the song for his album "My Huckleberry Friend".

It was featured on the film "The Pope of Greenwich Village" and on the 2003 film "Matchstick Men".

In 2004, Irish boyband Westlife covered the song on their Rat Pack-inspired album "Allow Us To Be Frank".

The song can also be found in the sixth season première episode of "The Simpsons", "Bart of Darkness", sung by Martin Prince at the end of the show.

On Friday June 3, 2005 it became the last song played by oldies radio station WCBS-FM in New York before the station became Jack FM. When the station switched back to CBS-FM on Thursday, July 12, 2007, Jack FM's last song, "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey was interrupted mid-song at 12:43pm EST, and what continued with CBS-FM's broadcast of Sinatra's rendition of "Summer Wind". [WCBSFM broadcast; July 12, 2007; 12:43pm]

In 2006 James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers covered "Summer Wind" released as a b-side on the An English Gentleman UK CD single.

On May 3, 2006 "Summer Wind" was featured in the first episode of the Bob Dylan radio program Theme Time Radio Hour.

In April 2008, "Summer Wind" was sung by 10 year old Charlie Green on ITV's show Britain's Got Talent receiving rave reviews from Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan, and securing him a place in the running to sing before British royalty in the Royal Variety Performance.

It was the theme song for the 1984 film, "The Pope of Greenwich Village".

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